Dream Journaling for the Long Haul with Laura Hilemen

What big-picture stuff do we miss out on as we work on our dreams one by one? Today’s guest, Laura Hileman, talks about long term dream journaling and how we can use our dream journals to help us review the passing seasons of our lives. She share examples of how she recognized from her dreams that she had cancer long before the doctors diagnosed it. She encourages us to ask our dreams what they are longing for and says she finds it helpful to think of her day and night lives as being all one thing, like the “two” sides of a möbius strip. She then shares some ideas about dreams and spirituality and encourages us to ask what the third grader would say when we find ourselves getting too complicated in our dream analysis.

After the break we take a call from Henny from Ontario CA who has a question about active imagination. Laura suggests that we look at Bob Hoss’s Six Magic Questions. We then take a call from Michelle from TN who asks what we are to make of all the weird composite figures that our dreams send us. We end with Laura giving more specific advice about how to record your dreams with an eye toward long term journaling.

BIO: Laura has been a dreamworker and spiritual director for 25 years.  Trained at the Haden Institute, she’s mentored there and at Wisdom Tree Collective, where her dream course launches in September.  Through her practice Fire by Night Dreamwork, Laura offers online dream groups, private sessions, and workshops on dream integration and spiritual practice.

Find our guest at: FirebyNight.net

This show, episode number 302, was recorded during a live broadcast on March 15, 2025 at KSQD.org, community radio of Santa Cruz.

Intro and outro music by Mood Science. Ambient music new every week by Rick Kleffel. Archived music can be found at Pandemiad.com. Many thanks to Rick for also engineering the show and to Tony Russomano for the answering the phones.

 

SHARE A DREAM FOR THE SHOW or a question or enquire about being a guest on the podcast by emailing Katherine Bell at katherine@ksqd.org. Follow on FB, IG, LI, & YT @ExperientialDreamwork #thedreamjournal. To learn more or to inquire about exploring your own dreams go to ExperientialDreamwork.com.

The Dream Journal aims to: Increase awareness of and appreciation for nightly dreams. Inspire dream sharing and other kinds of dream exploration as a way of adding depth and meaningfulness to lives and relationships. Improve society by the increased empathy, emotional balance, and sense of wonder which dream exploration invites.

A dream can be meaningful even if you don’t know what it means.

The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM. Catch it streaming LIVE at KSQD.org 10-11am Pacific Time on Saturdays. Call or text with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or email at onair@ksqd.org. Podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms the Monday following the live show. The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page can be found at ksqd.org/the-dream-journal/.

Closed captioning is available on the YouTube version of this podcast and an automatically generated transcript is available at Apple Podcasts.

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